Page 32 of Murder in Moonlight
She halted and turned fully to face him, letting her skirts settle with the distinctive, delicious rustle of silk. “That you didn’t kill her husband. From what you say, she was concerned the others were accusing you, not that you might have done it.”
“I don’t think she believes anyone she knows could have done it.”
“She doesn’t know you,” Constance pointed out. “She has met you twice.”
Solomon opened his mouth as though to make some derisive reply before he acknowledged the truth with a slight inclination of the head. “You think she did it herself? Is she that good an actress?”
“Perhaps,” Constance said. “Like most of us, she is used to playing a role in public. And her state of upsetcouldbe due to guilt as much as grief. Or perhaps she knows who did do it and is protecting them for some reason. In which case, we should probably watch over her quite carefully. Or…” She eyed him speculatively.
He sighed. “Or what?”
“Or she fancies you and now feels guilty about it because her husband is dead.”
Of course, he regarded her with disapproval. “Do you read a lot of novels?”
“In between the pamphlets that the reforming ladies leave on our doorstep. Trust me, those things give my girls more nightmares than the most lurid novel you can imagine.”
“I am sure you are made of much stronger stuff.”
“I am. It’s the laughing that keeps me awake. Don’t you want to know what I learned this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said, scowling with discontent. “Alice Bolton looks down her pointed nose at me, as if I dropped off the sole of her dirty boot. Her husband was far too busy in the library with Randolph all afternoon, and Ellen is avoiding me. Which is interesting, I suppose, but hardly helpful.”
Grey at last left off gazing at the rain trickling down the glass and rose from the window seat. “Then let us join the others before dinner and see what else we can learn.”
They entered the drawing room together. Unsurprisingly, all conversation halted as everyone looked toward them.
“Mrs. Goldrich,” Ivor Davidson greeted her, his eyes both challenging and mocking. “Do you have all our movements recorded?”
“I wrote down what you all told me,” Constance said, as though she didn’t notice his hostility, “and left the results on a table in the library for you to see. If I have made mistakes—or you have—please tell me.”
There was no time for more, for Mrs. Winsom tottered in on Miriam’s arm.
“Mama!” Randolph went to her at once, which made Constance feel slightly better about him.
“How brave of you to come down, Deborah,” Alice Bolton said warmly. “We are all cheered by your presence.”
Constance rather doubted that. The most severely bereaved tended to be an embarrassment and were hardly the life and soul of any party. But perhaps Mrs. Winsom’s appearance was a welcome sign that she had not disintegrated altogether. Constance thought it probably helped the widow more to be among her family and friends, although surely she must be aware that one of them had murdered her husband.
Unless Deborah had done it herself.
Watching her with fresh eyes as she clung to Randolph and then to Thomas Bolton, Constance could still not quite believe in her guilt. Like everyone else, she had a motive, and, once her maid had left her, she had the best opportunity of whisking about the house and grounds unseen.
But would she even know where her cook kept the knives?
Perhaps she had seized it in passing one day, while consulting about menus…if such business was conducted in the kitchen rather than in Mrs. Winsom’s territory.
The company was even more subdued than at luncheon. No one wished to say anything to upset the widow further, which made for long silences and brief, awkward conversations.
Until Deborah herself said suddenly, “When should we expect the policemen from Scotland Yard?”
Strict table manners had fallen by the wayside as though the burden of one single, general discussion was easiest. Even so, there was a short silence following this question, some of it dismayed, or simply blank.
“Tomorrow sometime, I imagine,” Thomas Bolton said reluctantly. “The inquest will be held then, too.”
His wife added, “Mrs. Goldrich has taken it upon herself to write down where everyone was and who can vouch for whom. Apparently, the police might be interested in such matters.”
